Some protocols used over networks are based on broadcast messages for communicating among nodes in the network. For example, in networks used for communication among lighting and other stage production equipment (sometimes referred to as “entertainment networks”), control consoles using broadcast-based protocols may be employed to manage various different groups of nodes. As the size of the network grows, the network traffic produced by such broadcast-based protocols can overload some nodes since each of the broadcast messages are flooded throughout the network. Since it may be necessary for individual nodes to receive the entire broadcast message, cache it, and decode the message before determining if the message is relevant to itself or not (e.g., the message was for another node), nodes with limited processing and memory capacity are especially susceptible.
Protocols that use multicast messages are less likely to overload the nodes because network devices, such as a network switch, can filter out the multicast messages that are not associated with a node on a given network interface. As a result, a given node is less likely to receive and be burdened with decoding messages that are not relevant to the respective node. A device that can translate broadcast messages received from control consoles or other nodes into multicast messages is desirable.